


La vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin. (Or, Life is too short to drink bad wine.)

by LysanderandHermia



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Slow Burn, mermaid au, mermaid!jolras, seriously it's so slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2116260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LysanderandHermia/pseuds/LysanderandHermia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What the fuck?" Was what Grantaire was both thinking and saying as the 'fish' broke the surface of the water, and all he could see amongst the water splashing all over, was scales, and huge red fins, and skin, and golden hair. He had three seconds to try and understand what he'd seen, and then the line snapped.</p><p>or, the one where Grantaire breaks from Paris and goes to a cabin on a lake, and meets a half-man, half-fish who is both infuriating and beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin. (Or, Life is too short to drink bad wine.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poetofthefall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetofthefall/gifts).



> For Anna, since we had WAY too much fun creating headcannons for this verse while she was visiting.

As far as lakes went, it wasn't anything _spectacular_ , unlike Loch Ness with all of its lore seekers, or Crater Lake and its picturesque, breathtaking views that reflected the sky. Small and murky, Grantaire's lake _did_ , however, hold one thing that very very few lakes in the world did, though he didn't know it yet.

It was an easy five minute row from one side of the lake across to the other in his little rowboat - _Le Cynique_ \- and perhaps a fifteen minute walk around the edge, with a sandy shoreline around its circumference. A bubbling stream trickled in to the north, supplying it with water, and fish, though Grantaire doubted it would ever truly dry out, stream or not. It was deceptively deep. He remembered as a child, lowering a rock knotted to a rope down, down, down in the middle, and running out of his respectable fifty feet of cord before he ever hit slack on the line.

Still, it was his, in a sense, and Grantaire loved it for that reason, and looked forwards to the few months he tried to spend there every few years, out of Paris and her suffocating tourist crowds, her vices, and her debasement - quite by accident - of simple living.

A few hundred yards from the lake, up a short hill through the thin surrounding trees, was a cabin that he called home for that time, small and comfortable. Inside lent thought to a perpetual Autumn, where oversized sweaters and pumpkin spice were static fixtures, and watching grainy films on the small and older-than-sin television felt _right_. Joly would probably tease him about being so ridiculously bohemian, while he could see Jehan settling in with an orgasmic sigh and a mug of cocoa.

The thought of his friends made him smile as he footed the car door shut, glancing up the narrow driveway to the cabin, and then down to the lake. Dropping his bags just inside the door took the work of a minute, but hunting down his fishing rod from the shed took longer. Before long, though, he was out on the lake, line in the water, a sketchbook in his hand as he eyed the cabin from his slouched vantage point in the boat, marking the pages with charcoal. Fishing wasn't something he particularly liked or wanted to do at the moment, but on the off chance he caught something while he was out there, it meant home cooked food that evening instead of driving twenty minutes to the closest town for dinner.

 

The merman swam slow lengths around the bottom of the lake, enjoying the cool evening currents and the swirl of the water against his fins. He'd been sunning earlier in the day and fallen asleep, and had a bit of a burn on them, which hurt, but now, it felt better. His long hair was twisted back into a messy bun, held together with a few fish bones and some string he'd found ages ago.

The smell of blood in the water drew his eyes up though, and he all but crashed into an underwater rock outcropping as he stared up at the underside of the boat. Why was there a boat in his lake? There hadn't been a boat there in... a long time. He didn't keep track of days all that much. But it had certainly been a while.

Cautiously, he swam a bit nearer, his lithe tail easily keeping him all but hovering in the same place as he stared at the fish stuck on the hook at the end of a string. Poor thing. He felt a scowl slip onto his usually calm face, and reached out, carefully taking hold of the trout, and clamping it to his side while carefully removing the hook with deft fingers. The fish was more than happy to swim away, but the merman couldn't help but look at the hook, a piece of worm still dangling on by a piece of skin.

The curved metal was shiny, glinting in the late sun's light. The merman brought it closer to his face to get a look at it, leaning in to nibble the worm off the end.

 

Grantaire glanced up, a movement catching his eye, and quickly set his sketchbook aside, surprised when he saw his line moving. He grinned, surprised that he'd actually caught something, and reached for it. A moment later, it stilled, and he sat back, rather disappointed. Must have eaten the bait and gotten away, then, he assumed, still watching where the line met the water, blinking when it moved again, though slowly.

Biting his lip, Grantaire carefully picked up the rod, gripping it tightly. He took a breath. The Moment of Truth - Jehan would be proud of him - and with a jerk of his hand, he tugged the rod, and the hook under the water, up quickly, already starting to reel, and hoped he'd snagged something. Whatever it was, it was a big damned fish, he thought, swearing as he tugged against the line.

 

The hook jerked quite suddenly, just as the merman was finishing his little morsel, and he had exactly one moment to curse his misfortune, before there was a tugging, searing pain in his lip, and he was pulled upwards. Wriggling and flailing in the sudden and unexpected pain, he had no choice but to follow the tug towards the surface, breaking the water right next to the boat and wriggling even harder, because _now_ he understood, and _now_ , he was afraid, and angry. A fisherman would kill him, and put him in a box forever to be stared at by all manner of humans.

 

"What the fuck?" Was what Grantaire was both thinking and saying as the 'fish' broke the surface of the water, and all he could see amongst the water splashing all over, was scales, and huge red fins, and skin, and golden hair. He had three seconds to try and understand what he'd seen, and then the line snapped.

 

The searing pain was, quite suddenly, gone, and the merman dove far back down and away, hiding behind a rock while he ripped the hook out of his lip and felt for damage; watched the blood trickle and dissipate into the water. And he got very, _very_ angry. He practically rocketed out of the water, all fear forgotten in the face of his wrath, and started yelling at the human, gripping the sides of the boat to hold himself up, screaming.

"How _dare_ you fish here, and try to _catch_ me, as if you _could_ -" never mind that he almost did, "-and how _dare_ you come out here into _my_ lake, into my _home_ and just... just _do_ something like this? You attacked me with no reason! You should be ashamed of yourself! Never come near me or my home again!"

He snarled again, and then, with a very big effort, flipped the boat completely with the man still sitting in it. The merman didn't wait around to see what happened. If he died, then that was a shame, because what human went into water that couldn't swim? He'd never heard of one, certainly. Then again, he didn't hear about many humans in the first place. He almost felt guilty, but then he felt his lip with his tongue, scowled, and disappeared far down into the caves that led him to his home, and to a tunnel network that connected to a vast underground lake, as well as other lakes in the area.

 

Grantaire ran two hands through his hair that was now soaked, leaning forwards to peer into the water immediately, stunned at what he'd seen. Had he seen a merman? Was he high? He didn't remember taking any drugs. He stared at his reflection in the choppy water, brought to a complete standstill by the confusing thing that had just happened.

And just as he'd sat back and decided that he was seeing things and that he'd simply managed to snag an unusually large fish that broke the line, the thing was back. Only, it wasn't a thing, was it? It was a fucking _merman_. He stared at the creature, too lost for words, and only realized that it was saying something when it paused for breath, and not just screeching. He didn't understand a single word of it, though. Leaning back in the boat, he simply stared at the angry, wild thing that was yelling at him with all the fury of a god.

The man didn't even have a chance to let out a yelp of surprise when the boat capsized, simply hit the water, losing most of his breath as the world spun, and he sank in cold water. A moment or two later, and he broke the surface again, coughing as he tread water, watching his things that had been in Le Cynique sink quickly. His sketchbook drifted down on the currents, and he swore, trying and failing to right the boat. Giving up, he had no choice but to swim back to shore, catching his breath as he sat on the sand, staring out at the middle of the lake, waiting for the merman to reappear.

He did not.

Grantaire went back up the path to his cabin, went inside, changed out of his wet clothes, cooked dinner, and stared out the window for several hours, with no sign of anything disturbing the moonlit waters. After a while, he grabbed a bottle of wine and headed down to the beach again, sitting on the bank and slowly drinking through the bottle, watching the moon rise and cross half the sky. He waited for the merman to reappear.

He did not. And by the time morning came, Grantaire was half convinced it had been a dream, if it weren't for the capsized boat.


End file.
